"Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture"

NOTHING would seem more dull than an exhibition of portrait busts, those stone-faced dust-catchers representing obscure generals, long-dead clergymen, government functionaries and preening aristocrats that one sometimes encounters tucked away in museum hallways or lobbies but rarely in prominent galleries for painting and sculpture. Typically, the sitter's wearisome vanity outdistances the artist's skill with a chisel and a drill.

But then there is Bernini -- Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), the brilliant and prolific sculptor, architect and painter who more or less invented Italian Baroque art. Along the way he also transformed the dreary portrait bust, a tradition largely inert since ancient Rome.

He made it into something dynamic and, on occasion, even spellbinding. Opening today at the J. Paul Getty Museum, "Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture" traces that improbable phenomenon with style and intelligence.

“Self-Portrait” (circa 1625). Bernini was a child prodigy, born in Naples but relocated to Rome as young boy. Shown in this drawing at about age 27, he is trying to reconcile a three-dimensional head on a two-dimensional sheet, which doesn’t quite work out in the flat rendering of hair.

“Cardinal Scipione Borghese (detail)” (1632). Bernini adapted to sculpture the relatively new painters’ trick of animating a portrait by making the sitter appear to speak. The cardinal’s mouth is slightly open, the upper and lower lips tugging at the corners as if moist.